The intervention of follow-up education program in Taiwanese schoolchildren and its effects on both physiological and behavioral factors

The intervention of follow-up education program in Taiwanese schoolchildren and its effects on both physiological and behavioral factors

Purpose: To investigate whether the intervention of eye care education has substantial benefits in schoolchildren to prevent them being myopic or to control their myopia development. Moreover, the factors that are related to myopia progression are analyzed using physiological data collection and questionnaire.
Methods: There were two stages in the study. In the first part, a cross-sectional study was applied and ocular physiological data were collected from 175 school children in two elementary schools in central Taiwan. The children were categorized into three groups: hyperopes (+1.00D≦SE), emmetropes (-1.00D Results: In the first part, it is shown that the mean AL/CR ratio of the myopic group (3.13±0.11) was significantly higher than the emmetropic group (2.96±0.07) and the hyperopic group (2.87±0.08). Significant differences in AL/CR ratios were also found between the high myopic group (3.38±0.11) and the low myopic group (3.1±0.08, p<0.001) and the moderate myopic group (3.16±0.07, p<0.005). In the second part, after one-year follow-up, there were no significant differences in changes in either spherical equivalent or axial length compared to the control group. However, a statistically significant difference was found for the annual changes in AL/CR ratio between the two groups (p=0.02). The correlation between questionnaire data and spherical equivalent as well as axial length variation were analyzed. It was found that the spherical equivalent variation had a positive correlation to“My family take me to outdoor after class almost every day”were (r=0.34, p=0.02); whereas, the axial length variation showed a negative correlation to“keep the distance when reading and writing”(r= - 0.45, p<0.01).
Conclusion: The AL/CR ratio was more effective than the axial length in predicting the development of spherical equivalent. No statistically significant differences in spherical equivalent and axial length variation between the eye care education group and the control group, however, the AL/CR ratio variation of the eye care education group showed a significantly less increase. Furthermore, frequently engaging in outdoor activities and keeping an adequate reading distance may slow down myopia progression.